SMALL-TOWN THEATRE

Wishbone engages Valemount-area audiences

by Galadriel Watson

“These walls keep closing in.” It’s a sentiment many people felt during the pandemic, but it’s also a line from a song in the production The Last Good Valley on Earth, performed in spring 2022 by Valemount’s Wishbone Theatre Productions. By coincidence, the musical is about a pandemic, written before the pandemic happened. It was prepped to be staged in 2019, and then, 10 days before opening night, “Everything kind of shut down,” says Sharon Stearns, Wishbone’s artistic producer, director and playwright.

Luckily for local audiences, the show finally did go on—albeit a couple of years later.

Rural living and theatre combine

Wishbone has been entertaining audiences in Valemount and area since 2008. “I always try to attract as diverse an audience as I possibly can, everybody from five to ninety,” Stearns says.

Stearns is the creator of the company and the glue that holds it together: “Kind of a one-gal band,” she explains. For about 30 years, she worked as a professional theatre artist in various locations in Canada, including Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Looking for a different way of life eventually drew her to Valemount, where she now has a farm with her partner and raises horses. “It’s a beautiful lifestyle,” she says.

Despite the more isolated location, theatre still called. Stearns began Wishbone in 2001, taking the show on the road all around British Columbia. It wasn’t until 2008 that she targeted the communities of the Robson Valley, including Valemount, McBride and Dunster. Now, “I’m almost entirely focused on continuing to work with the ensemble and developing new material for my audiences here.”

A dedicated crew and one-of-a-kind scripts

The ensemble she speaks of is “a core group of probably six to eight people who have been with me since 2008,” although she also notes that, “I’m always open to people who want to participate.” For The Last Good Valley on Earth, for example, the crew totalled 13 people. Many have professional backgrounds in theatre and music, some are locals, but Stearns also invites professionals from elsewhere to join the productions. Although almost everybody also has day jobs, Wishbone is able to pay honorariums thanks to box office revenues and funding from sources like Columbia Basin Trust’s arts and culture program, delivered through the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance, the BC Arts Council, the regional district and local municipal funding bodies.

While “pretty well all of the shows are written by me,” Stearns says, “it’s always a collaborative effort. I work collectively with my crew. They’re definitely a part of the creation process.”

The plays take place in venues like the “beautiful theatre” in Valemount Secondary School. Wishbone also holds cabarets, which offer sketch comedy pieces and music, often on a specific theme, in spots like the Legion and community halls.

People look forward to the productions, because they offer “original theatre that speaks to local as well as global issues,” Stearns says. “In a creative way, we reflect back on what’s happening in the world and in people’s lives, and in our community, our society, our culture. I think that in any town, whether it’s a small town or a big city, it’s important to have theatre. It helps us celebrate who we are as human beings and takes us outside of ourselves.”

A close look at an apocalypse

The Last Good Valley on Earth definitely took people outside of themselves, as you can tell by its synopsis. Imagine this: a world collapse; a love story; Alpha Tec humans; swamp creatures; sad clowns; digitally designed kitties; an asteroid carnival act. Mix and serve and you have a play that welcomes you into the end of the world as you never imagined it.

“It was a show about our global preoccupation with apocalyptic issues,” Stearns says, “things that have to do with the end of the world because of climate change or pollution, or environmental degradation. Our human footprint is so enormous that we are really putting our whole planet in danger, including us.”

Yet the play was also comedic and musical. “I was trying to use as much comedy as I can. So it wasn’t dark, but it was dealing with a dark subject. It created some kind of hope for the future.”

Plenty on the horizon

And what will the future entail?

Funding obtained pre-pandemic can finally be put to use. A small cabaret fundraiser should take place this fall. In spring 2023 one of Wishbone’s crew, Miwa Hiroe, will present a piece she wrote herself, called I, Human. This will be followed by a piece Stearns wrote, a “lighthearted” historical murder mystery called Falling Out of Place. Then, in fall 2023, there will be the western musical, Showdown.

Now that the pandemic hiatus is over and “we’ve got one show under our belt and these other ones in process, it feels a little bit overwhelming,” Stearns admits. “But also very exciting.”

Learn more about Wishbone Theatre Productions and its upcoming performances at wishbonetheatreproductions.ca.

Banner image: The Last Good Valley on Earth cast members Sarah McCrea, Monica Zieper and Miwa Hiroe examine a tray of worm-destroyed seedlings. Photo: Matthew Wheeler